


Astray

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma, Episode: s05e17 Compulsion, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Nick's struggle with Compulsion.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11





	Astray

**Author's Note:**

> 5x17 introspection. mentions of sexual abuse.

_“Boy’s not even safe in his own bed.”_

Nick breathes through his nose, his teeth grinding in a clenched jaw. His eyes haven’t left the boy’s body since they walked into the room, and his eyes don’t even meet Catherine as her voice grows more distant and disoriented.

There’s no signs of sexual trauma—not yet, at least, they’ll learn more after the autopsy but the sight of this boy, this _innocent_ boy broken and bleeding and battered on his _own bed,_ his place to rest now turned into a final resting place, adds to the everlasting fire within an aching soul wishing to just forget what he survived. 

He lets out the breath he was struggling to keep in his body, he can’t let himself crumble, can’t _ever_ let himself crumble in these cases. He wouldn’t be able to do his job, otherwise.

Wouldn’t be able to give these premature burials of children who should have never had to suffer, should never have to be buried by their parents, the justice and peace they deserve.

“I’ll take the inside,” Catherine’s words somehow reach him, pull him back to the present.

“Yeah, I could use the fresh air,” he says and rushes out of the room as fast as he can before it completely morphs into his own childhood room back in Texas.

He’s calmer as he works on the outside of the house, his heart rate returns to normal and his breathing becomes less labored, but there’s still an urgency in his investigation that he reserves for only the most important of cases. 

He finds a lot more than he expected to for a house that showed no signs of a break in, especially outside the victim’s bedroom— _Ty’s_ bedroom, the kid has a name, a small boy’s voice in the back of his head reminds him.

Among the things he finds is a shoe print outside the bedroom window. Graffitied words. He can’t help but look in too, look in on Catherine continuing to process the room.

Look in on the empty bed, though he still sees the ghost of a lifeless body. Still hears a little boy’s voice. 

_“I didn’t mean to wet the bed, it-it just happened,”_ as he watches Catherine remove the stained bedsheets.

He swallows and begins to stray from the house as Catherine leaves the bedroom, knowing that if he didn’t break his trance now he never would, and he’d be trapped in the shoes of the potential killer that may have stood outside the window and looked in on the innocence he was about to steal away.

He moves to the backyard, sifts through the trash that he identifies with, feeling lesser and more helpless with each passing second; and finds a pile of pipes that brings him back into his investigative beast mode. 

“Found a pile of pipes by the side of the house; one seems to be missing. This is an exemplar of a possible murder weapon,” he rapid-fire fills Catherine in on the evidence he found when they are ready to conclude their preliminary observations, speaking as if he’s being paid by the word. “And I cast a shoe impression just outside the kid's bedroom window. Also some graffiti on the window—B-R- A-T. Maybe somebody had it in for the kid,”

He was called a brat once...twice...three times...many times by many people but the first ever person to call him that...was _her._

"Well, I bagged the bloody sheets from the bed. Found boxers, a t-shirt and a fitted sheet in the washer. ALS'd for blood, found urine,” Catherine speaks slower, almost...cautiously after Nick’s information dump. 

“Mm. Well, whoever killed the boy knew how to get in and out of this house without waking the family,” Nick concludes.

 _Like_ _a babysitter._

“Hey, are you going to be okay for this?” Catherine asks, a mixture of authority and maternity in her voice as she reels him back in when he starts straying away.

“I have to be.”


End file.
